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Blanketing Fantasy With A Hint of Reality

Image: CNN.com

Carolyn felt comforted and satisfied as she finally turned off the TV after watching Hillary Clinton being inaugurated as the 45th President of the United States. It had been a struggle for her over the past eight years of the Obama Presidency, not because she opposed President Obama, not at all. It was a struggle because of the unfair and racist criticism he was constantly faced with during his two terms.

She hoped that with the Clintons back in the White House for another four and hopefully eight years, the country could finally heal, racism and sexism would begin to fade, and all of the so-called “deplorables” would learn to accept that a nurturing, protective, and loving woman was leading the nation. She fervently wished that Hillary wouldn’t have to experience sexism the way President Obama had faced such racist hatred.

Carolyn curled up on her sofa and pulled her big, fluffy blanket over her. She felt totally at peace, soothed, and relaxed. She thought about picking up her half-finished novel or making herself another cup of tea, but she didn’t feel like expending the energy. She wanted to bask in the glow of Hillary Clinton being the President. It almost didn’t seem real, more like a dream or fantasy come to life.

Then she cried out as another sudden, sharp pain shot through her skull. The headache was back. Where was it coming from? She’d been having these episodes with startling regularity ever since the day after Hillary won the election. She’d been to her doctor and then a specialist, but no one could explain why she had such pain.

She rubbed her temples and muttered, “Please, please go away.”

Then it was gone, just like that. Carolyn returned to her inner sanctum of peace and tranquillity.

*****

“There, you can see another episode of brain activity on the EEG monitor. This is the strangest coma I’ve ever observed.”

Ronald Phillips had been a neurologist for twenty-two years, but over the past two months in this hospital alone, he’d seen nearly a dozen patients like Carolyn. People who had, for no apparent reason, lapsed into a coma, but a coma where the patients periodically experience sudden, violent brain activity before lapsing back into their previous state.

The CDC reported that this was happening to patients in every major population center in the nation and was rapidly approaching epidemic proportions.

“What’s the key? Why are these patients displaying such bizarre activity?” He was half speaking to the nurse and intern who were in Carolyn’s hospital room with him and half to himself.

“What’s the connection? Why do healthy, young men and women enter into a comatose state with these particular symptoms?”

His cell chirped telling him a text was coming in. “Oh great, two more patients have just been admitted with the same characteristics as Carolyn and the others. I’d better go downstairs and get them checked in.”

Phillips started to walk out of the room with the intern in tow when he turned back to the nurse. “Oh and Sheila, can you turn the TV off? Donald Trump’s inauguration finished half an hour ago, though at this point, I doubt that Carolyn cares one way or the other.”

Unfortunately, Dr. Phillips was wrong. Carolyn and all of the other patients like her cared a great deal, so much so, that they couldn’t face the reality that Donald Trump was the 45th President of the United States. Sadly, their only defense was retreating into a fantasy world, one that imperfectly allowed painful shards of the real world to intrude.

So many people don’t want to accept that Donald Trump is the next President of the United States, so I based this piece of flash fiction on that fact.

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4 thoughts on “Blanketing Fantasy With A Hint of Reality”

If only we could have all the tantrum throwing progressives with a heart felt, overwhelming desire to keep Trump from being elected fall into such a convenient coma. But ‘if only’s are just that, wistful desires for a better reality.

I’m really not wishing harm or comas on Clinton’s supporters, but it just seems like so many of them are avoiding dealing with the reality of the situations. College students are having “cry ins” in their safe places, drinking hot chocolate and holding blankets, while others are calling for Trump’s immediate impeachment, something that can’t happen until he’s actually sworn in as President. I can understand that these people object to Trump winning, but sooner or later they’ll have to come to terms with it.

I certainly wasn’t in favor of an Obama Presidency, and while I complained and disagreed with his policies, I never actually denied the reality that he’s the President.